My quest for e-Weird concludes

My quest for weird has turned up some gems, and shown me that we need to nurture new writing talent in both mainstream and independent publishing.

A month ago I threw open the doors of the Weird Things column to all comers. Nominate your weird stories I said, and nominate them you did. I’ve looked at more than 500 independently published weird stories, from writers of whom I had in all but a few cases never heard. I hope it has been a genuine exercise in new talent spotting, and I hope the five stories (and a few honourable mentions) highlighted below will all receive some well-deserved attention as a consequence. I’ve also returned from my quest for weird with a better understanding of the new paradigm of digital independent publishing, one formed as much by what I did not find as what I did.